BTR best functions as a way to experience every mode that Grace has to offer as both songwriter and vocalist. It’s also the closest that Grace has come to letting others in and having a direct dialogue with the outside world.

Teetering between organized and messy, the melodic and chaotic, Bought to Rot is what Grace considers her "Scorpio album." Presenting herself bare, she exposes unfiltered honesty through the kind plain-spokenness that's, nowadays, avoided by contemporaries of her stature.

When combined with the gut-level hooks, this barbed wit results in a record that's simultaneously immediate and enduring: the first listen demands attention, but it's the left turns, in both the lyrics and melodies, that makes Bought To Rot so satisfying.

This turntable of pastiche never allows Grace and the Devouring Mothers to develop an identity beyond Against Me! side project or to scratch much more than the surface of these assorted styles. Owing in part to the trio’s shared experience and chemistry, this feels a lot like rock-band karaoke.